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Includes business and personal correspondence, accounts, legal papers, bank statements, maps, etc. Business correspondence, 1850-1938, include letters concerning A. P. Howard's various business enterprises; farm, livestock, fruit and produce, Wellsville, Ohio; printing firm, Columbus, Ohio; tannery, Corry, Penna.; bank and metal works, Pittsburgh, PA; farm, Congo, WV; subscription agent in Wellsville, Ohio for National Era, Washington, D.C. Earlier letters are to A. G. DeSellem, an uncle, including several concerning missionary work and anti-slavery activities; mention is made of several colleges, Western Reserve, Oberlin, and a school in Albany.

Correspondence, speeches, business and legal papers, newspaper clippings, and photographs of the founder of Mother's Day. The collection includes papers of Anna's father, Grandville E. Jarvis; the notes and typescript drafts of "Recollections of Ann M. Jarvis, 1833-1905," by Anna Jarvis; and the papers of the Fairmont songwriter, William Lynett. Subjects include Jarvis' efforts to institute Mother's Day on a state basis, and her later protest against the commercialization of the day of remembrance; Jarvis coal and farm lands in Taylor County; real estate holdings in Philadelphia; Quaker City Cab Company; and her activities in the library department of a Philadelphia insurance company. Correspondents include Mrs. W.R. Hearst, Spessard L. Holland, John T. McGraw, John W. Mason, Matthew M. Neely, and Jennings Randolph.

The bulk of these papers deal with Miss Jarvis' work as the founder of Mother's Day, her attempts to persuade state governors to issue proclamations to establish the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day, and her later protests against the commercialization of the holiday, as well as the efforts of other organizations to promote Mother's Day.

Research notes, news clippings, photographs, and other materials gathered by James for her book, ANNE ROYALL'S USA, published by Rutgers University Press in 1972.

Correspondence and genealogical materials related to the William B. Edwards family of King George County, Virginia, and the Capt. William Sommerville family of Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia) from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These families were joined when Elizabeth Sommerville (1812-1886), daughter of the Revolutionary War veteran, married William B. Edwards (1810-1888), a Methodist clergyman from a planter family, in 1833.

A bound typescript titled "War Times in Mountain Cove, Letters of Nancy Hunt to Refugee Friends in York State, 1862-1865," consisting of nine letters written by Nancy Hunt (1820-1891) in Fayette County to Joseph H, and Francis Hopping in Auburn, New York. The letters were transcribed and annotated by Charles A. Goddard.